Round 2 Dingding
by Chanlin Marr
Summary: After the 'final' gunshot, Max finds his only way -out- is to go back -in- R/R!
1. Default Chapter

**Round 2: Ding...ding...**  
By  
Chanlin Marr

_Having been arrested atop the AESIR Corporation Tower, Max Payne is escorted under heavy guard to a nearby New York City Police Precinct for processing:_

For my victory over evil I was given a parade of flashing red and blue, shining off the white snow that covered the world. An all-American celebration.

The chained tires of the cruiser reached the precinct in record time. The media was already there, a bio-mechanical blob of digital cameras and steamy breath. The New York Neo Ice Age hadn't been enough to stop the world's need for a new headline.

"Mr. Payne! How does it feel to be the most wanted man in Ne-"

"Max! How many people did you gun down toni-"

"What's your sign?!"

The shouts and questions and screams began to bleed together into a haze of noise. Somewhere among it all, I thought I heard someone chuckling, but it was whitewashed from my attention by the staccato of flashbulbs and loud words.

I was strong-armed into central booking by a pair of formerly 'fellow' officers, my new steel bracelets clinking audibly, now that the paparazzi was muted by closed doors and bustling police work.

Before the ink could dry on my fingertips I was sitting in the box, the interrogation room, chained to a cheap metal table. Above me, the standard fluorescent tube buzzed its cold light downward. The standard 'mirror' was there too, on the wall, hiding God knew how many accusing pairs of eyes behind its silvery sheen. But the only eyes I saw were my own, staring back. I didn't recognize the face.

A soft rattling of the door grabbed my gaze, sticking it to the turning knob, then the general area where the person's center of mass would appear.

My mind was still that of a killer's.

The second I saw the newcomer's eye, I knew things were going my way.

"Mr. Payne. It is good to see you again."

"Probably only half as good as I see you." The Cyclops smirked at that, pausing to give me the once over, then turning towards the mirror as he sat across from me and waved away whoever might have still been watching. He was pretty cocky to think they'd all just vamoose at his say-so.

Behind the wall I heard a muffled shutting of a door. Overconfident bastard.

"You succeeded above and beyond my wildest dreams, Mr. Payne. The Inner Circle had been fighting Nicole Horne and her plans for some time now, with little ground gained. You did in two days what we had been working towards for 5 years."

"Cut the congratulations, Woden. All I care about right now is whether or not you're going to keep your end of our little bargain." He grinned at that. It was the smile of a serpent.

"And if I were just to say 'Goodbye,' Mr. Payne?"

"Then I'd say you're really itching to have 'America's Funniest Home Sex Tapes of Alfred Woden with Candy the Hooker' air on primetime." That caught him cold. I could see the serpent slither timidly back into his hole.

"I presume you have something hidden away on that? Very well. It is of no consequence. Whatever I may be, Mr. Payne, I'm a man of my promises. And even regardless of that fact, I'm not so foolish as to bring upon me the ire of someone so proficient at taking lives as you."

That stung, and he knew it. I did what I did because I had to. Up front. No bullshit. Mr. "Secret Society" here didn't know the meaning of 'up front.' Funny thing was, he kept right on talking. I wasn't thrilled with his sales pitch.

"Now obviously your life as you know it is over. Even I do not hold so much sway that I can just erase the fact that Max Payne has committed numerous counts of homicide over the last 48 hours, whether they were justified or not. No, I cannot erase your crimes...but I _can_ erase your existence."

"Been there, done that. Why do you think the Cops so conveniently forgot I was working for them?" I might as well have not been there the way his words kept talking themselves right through me.

"What I propose is that you be killed. I may not be able to whitewash the justice system, but I can hurry things along rather nicely. You'll be put to trial, convicted, and sentenced to death. You'll go to the electric chair, and Max Payne will be dead."

"I'm still waiting for the punchline, Al. And if I don't hear one quick, I'm going to give you one. Hard." He was paying attention now.

"The punchline, as you call it, is the captured Valkyr test subject who will be taking your place in court, in jail, and on death row for the foreseeable future. Fortunately he is your approximate height, and has a similar build. Add to that a comparable hair and eye color, and with a bit of facial reconstruction, which is being performed as we speak, we should have a workable double of you for disposal in no time.

"The beauty of it, Mr. Payne, is that the man is a blubbering zombie, so far gone from experimentation that he will fit perfectly the image of a psychotic killer. But that won't net him an insanity defense, because the actions 'you' took were much too tactical and methodical for someone legally insane. The court, and the jury, will simply assume it's an act."

I knew then that I really had fallen from grace. His plan actually made me smile. What sort of demon was I supping with here?

"How long?"

"Truth be told, even with the strongest anti-inflammatory medication, the swelling from the surgery won't completely disappear for at least a month. And even by that point, 'touch-ups' may be required. Best guess: you have two months of confinement before we can make the switch."

Woden stood, glowering down at me like Odin from the rainbow bridge, holding my salvation in that one working orb.

"Try to do your best to act crazy for the next 8 weeks. It will make the transition so much easier."

The smile came back, now the contented cobra smoothing his silk tie as he turned towards the door. He tossed one more veiled promise over his shoulder as he stepped into the shadowed hallway beyond:

"Your life isn't over, Mr. Payne. You shall live to fight another day." 


	2. Part II

Months are like fashion trends: You never notice them passing by unless you've got absolutely nothing better to do with your life, and I did.  
  
I had my satisfaction.  
  
It's funny how little trouble finds you in a state prison when you're known as a mass killer of the criminal element. My growing legend was a comforting barrier from any mook in the Pen even thinking of making a move on me. But it was the play-acting that was becoming a strain: keeping my eyes wide, keeping my smile just looney enough to pass as psychotic. But I also kept my wits about me, especially in the shower room. I hadn't been in prison before, but I'd seen plenty of movies to know to keep the soap in plain sight.  
  
The first two weeks were a breeze, until I somehow got transferred to C- block and Anton Punchinello's domain.  
  
Anton was Don Punchinello's nephew, and his former lead "problem solver." Rumor had it that one of Anton's best friends, a guy he'd even made his kid's Godfather, ended up screwing the Family out of 2 million bucks, skimming off a drug deal. After a talk with the Don, Anton invited his friend over for dinner, fed him a good meal, expensive wine, and served up a bullet as the desert. Right there at the table. Right in front of his own son. Something about teaching him the price of doing business.  
  
This was the guy who was king of C-block.  
  
I had barely laid out my bedroll when the main mozzarella ball himself clomped to my door.  
  
"So, this is the chump who wiped out my family and my crew, huh?"  
  
Anton's 'crew' had been the Trio, formerly the Quartet, but that was before Anton got sent up the river. It was nice to know the Mob could still add and subtract. But at that moment, it would take more than long division to put any distance between me and the shaved gorilla leaning into my cell. I put faith in Anton not knowing too many details of my adventures in the Don's mansion.  
  
"Wow…you must watch the news. But they never mention my blood promises in any of the reports I see…"  
  
That sparked what passed for Anton's attention span.  
  
"What the fuck you talkin' about, 'blood promises?'"  
  
"Oh..oh..nothing…just the writing on the wall in your uncle's blood that says ALL PUNCHINELLOS MUST DIE!!!" I punctuated that last part with a primal scream, clenched fists and taught neck muscles, bugging my eyes out like I had a defective thyroid. At least it was enough to make him take a step back.  
  
"You piece of shit. I'm gonna…"  
  
The thought, if mongo was capable of such a feat, was lost as the guard called lights out and the staccato of riot-geared footsteps began their nightly march along the catwalks to see the prisoners into their cells. Anton got out one more chirp before heading back to his birdcage.  
  
"I don't buy this psycho shit, Payne. I had you moved here for a reason. Sleep tight." And he parted with a wink of dark assurance. I knew I could expect an attack, either by Anton or one of his goons sometime soon. I spent the next couple of hours with a toothbrush, a razor blade, and a match. A little jailhouse arts and crafts was the only life insurance I was likely to get. 


	3. Part III

The sunlight that filtered into my cell the next morning kissed my face like a gentle lover, and for a moment I thought of my wife, and home. But the iron bars and stark walls quickly brought the dream to an end.  
  
The call came out to line up for the morning meal, and the cacophony of cell doors slamming and mooks mouths yamming almost sounded like metallic applause and caustic cheers. "You like me…you really, really like me," I thought as I palmed the shiv I had melted together the night before, and stepped out into the army ant line towards the food.  
  
My senses were in high gear as I sat down with the ooze that passed for food in this monkey house. While I pretended to be occupied with eating, my peripheral vision was making like RADAR, and scanning.  
  
I was like Spider-Man when my danger sense went off, and the tingling in my skull told me Anton's hand was reaching out to kill me. The fact that I saw him, three rows ahead of me, nudge his buddy to "get on with it" was a big red flag as well. The skinny punk, probably trying to climb some sort of jailhouse ladder of respect, got up and came towards me like a victim of Parkinson's disease: shaking all the way.  
  
I made like I didn't notice as he came near, then jumped up, putting the crazy back into my eyes and the fear into his. For a second we stood motionless, and I asked him something in a low, quiet hiss.  
  
"Wh-what did you say??" stuttered the scarecrow. I smiled like a Batman villain.  
  
"I said…WHAT'S THE FREQUENCY, KENNETH?!?!?" The scream rivaled that of my yell at Anton the day before. I'm sure I almost popped a blood vessel somewhere.  
  
The twitch was so startled he dropped his own, better shiv on the floor and took a step back. I bent quickly and picked it up, smiled once at the stick figure, and then leapt onto the nearest metal picnic table, and leap-frogged it down the rows, my feet smashing into cheap powdered eggs and rubbery flapjacks, yells and curses following me all the way to the third row down, and Anton's horrified face as he turned to see me coming at him with a shard of carved plastic and a razor edged toothbrush.  
  
* * * *  
  
I heard that Anton actually lived, though the one swipe left him sightless, and the second did wonders for his powers of speech.  
  
Someone told me that –I- actually lived, too, but a barely believed them. The beat-down that Anton's buddies, and then the prison guards, gave me left me doubtful of any reports of survival. But someone must have been smiling on me, because I ended up recuperating in the prison hospital, under guard, for the next 3 months. I figured either Woden had put a word in for me, or the Governor was more interested in seeing me live long enough for my vote-inducing example of his being "tough on crime," with the flick of the lethal injection switch.  
  
Either way, it was 3 months of bed rest, TV, and watching the nurse's hips wave both hello and goodbye day after day. Ah, life was good on death row.  
  
==  
  
Part 4 coming soon 


	4. Part IV

**Part 4**

In the dream, I'm back inside my bedroom, standing over the lifeless husk that had once been my wife. As I stand there, the walls, the bed, everything melts away like red wax and I'm left in a vast blackness. I can hear heavy footsteps coming towards me, and raspy breathing from a dozen different mouths. From somewhere, I pull out a gun and begin firing, the muzzle-flashes seeming to be swallowed up by the absence of light. Whoever they are, I know they are the enemy. They're upon me now, but still I see nothing but the dark.

In the dream, my throat goes raw as I scream into the void.

I'm awakened by a slap to the face.

"Rise and shine, Maxie."

I look up into the raggedly cut eyeholes of a ski-mask, a mean smile nestled just underneath, jutting from its own torn hole. I frown slightly.

"Halloween's four months back down the hall, pal. Let a condemned man get some winks." Despite the humor, my hand is already sliding under my pillow for the jagged spork I lifted off of yesterday's dinner plate. Ski-boy's hand clamps down on mine before I have a chance to snag it.

"Get real, Payne, and keep your voice down. This is your big jail break, so shut up and do what you're told, or we'll just let the state of New York cover our tracks for us."

I wanted to believe it, but I had to be sure.

"The guy who sent you…what's he missing?" Ski-boy smirked at me.

"Aside from the chunk of cash he paid us to pluck your sorry ass out of here? An eye."

I push myself up on my elbows, my muscles screaming complaints of long weeks of inactivity. I scan the darkened ward and see two more masked figures, all covering the main doors and fidgeting nervously. Woden had obviously hired on the cheap. This didn't bode well.

My gaze finally skims to the bed beside mine, and I have an out of body experience as I see myself lying there, sleeping. My 'twin,' I realize. I never knew I looked that menacing. Hell, I'd probably want to execute me, too.

Ski-boy tosses me a dark shirt and pants, and I change quickly.

"Pssst!" Ski-boy 2 hisses at Ski-boy 1, "it's now or never. Let's move!"

* * * *

I'm hustled out of the ward like a political VIP being stalked by some J.D. Salinger fan with too much time and bullets on his hands. With two Ski-boys to the front, and one to my rear, I barely see the route they lead me down until we hit the exit doors into the chill night.

It was like _Escape from Alcatraz_: armed guards on the catwalks, searchlights cutting through the blackness like lightsabers, and the oppressive instinct to keep silent. I didn't bother to think, just let the Ski patrol do their jobs and get me the hell out of there.

I'm still half asleep because it all seems like a dream as I'm running, stopping, and running again like a good day on the Harbor Freeway in L.A., and the feeling of a dream makes me think of home again, and…

**SLAM** I'm in a van before I know it, the sliding door ramming home and bringing me out of my stupor. Slowly, we roll away from whatever escape route we used, and pick up speed as the distance between me and steel bars increases.

We travel in silence, the heavy breathing of pumping adrenaline making the four of us sound like a convention of obscene phone calls in the cramped van. Once they regain their abilities of speech, the three huddle up near the front of the van, passing dark whispers I can't make out. In the back of my mind, worries over being executed just made a U-turn.

As we head off to god-knows-where, two of the Ski Patrol begin to grumble about full bladders and empty stomachs. Ski Boy 1 curses his own lack of stamina, and pulls over. Out the window, I see a comforting reminder of normal life: a gas station.

Ski Boy 2 is quickly elected to stay behind. "Get up here with me Payne. Last thing I'm gonna do is lose sight of my meal ticket."

I climb into the passenger seat as Ski Boys 1 and 3 peel off their masks and slide out of the van, crunching across gravel to their respective destinations of restroom and mini mart. Now up front, I have a better view of the outside world. It looks a lot different with the vertical bars subtracted from the picture.

Though my thoughts should be more centered on the early spring morning, and the comfortable buzz of freedom, my eyes strayed to a newspaper vending box outside the mini mart, blaring danger from its window:

_Killers still sought two months after double Cop slaying_

Cops being taken down in my town wasn't news to me, but the two cop pictured in the article brought back the wrong kind of memories: they had been standing outside the interrogation room before and after Woden had made his devil's deal with me. They had seen him arrive. They had left us alone to talk.

They had known too much.

It was a reach, I knew, but a guy like Woden doesn't tolerate loose ends. Like his his cop helpers. Like the Inner Circle. Like me. And with a crazy man now in my place, the chances of me testifying to Woden's involvement, to his very existence, were nil.

Hindsight had just made me Nostradamus, and it was time to fight the future.

Without preamble I cocked up my elbow and threw it firmly into Ski Boy 2's nose with a satisfying _crunch_ of cartilage and a spout of blood. I grab the butt of the 9mm sticking out of his waistband and wrap my finger around the trigger. I look into his dazed and shock-filled eyes. The thought that I might be wrong about the double cross flashes into my brain.

Nervous is in my stomach, and focus in my mind. But my heart isn't paying attention. I pull the trigger, squeezing a muffled bullet through his chest and into the seat behind him. The surprise comes to his eyes one final time, and then his gaze turns to the infinite.

Immediately I scan the gas station. My crossing the double crosser hadn't drawn any undue attention. I look at the keys in the ignition, entertaining the thought of just bolting. It would be easy, but it would also leave tongues to speak of my escape to Woden. Besides, I needed at least one of them to fill me in on some details.

I wipe the blood from Ski Boy's face with his sleeve and prop his slumped body up as best I can, turning his face towards the brightening horizon and away from the station where his comrades would soon be emerging. I folded my arms, hiding the 9mm from view, and readied myself.

I didn't have long to wait.

Ski Boys 1 and 3 exited the station in unison. 1 was sinking his brit-crooked teeth into a twinkie, and 3 was zipping up his fly coming out of the restroom. I take a deep breath as 1 slides the van door open and hops in, 3 close behind.

"Ok, let's roll. Hey, I said - "

Using my peripheral vision as best I can, I judge the distance between the hard headrest of my seat to 1's head, and grab the seat recline lever, _slamming_ my body backward, cracking 1 in the forehead as I roll to the side and jam the muzzle of the 9mm hard into 3's ribcage and squeeze off a single, fatal round. The shot isn't nearly as well muffled as the first had been, and it sounds like a bomb has gone off in the small van. 1 is stunned just long enough for me to introduce his nosetip to the scalding gun muzzle.

For a pair of hard heartbeats, we just stare at each other. I get the first word in.

"How long until you were supposed to off me?" Ski Boy is smarter than I gave him credit for. He knew when lying was just going to be counter-productive.

"A-as soon as we had you to the hole we dug." Definitely smarter.

"What made you think Woden wasn't going to erase you too? You're as much a liability as I am. You've seen his face." This is where the smarts ended. I could see revelation edge into his eyes.

"Shit."

"Where were you supposed to go to get your payment?"

"Warehouse…lower east side. Njord Shipping. Number three."

Looking at him, knowing he'd been duped, or let himself be duped I suppose, I didn't have it in me to get rid of him.

"I know the last place you'd run to is Mr. One-eye, so I'm giving you a Get Out Of Death free card. This is a one-time offer. First, you're going to unload your buddies from the van. Then you're going to pick a direction and start running. You'd better hope I don't see your face again, capice?"

#1 nods dumbly and scurries to drag his pals bodies from the van while I clean myself up and get into the driver's seat. I ignore the warm and wet stain of drying blood seeping through my shirt as I lean back and start the engine. I speed off with a warm 9 at my side and a scared 1 eating my dust. Playing by numbers, I'd be back into the den of evil called New York by nightfall.


	5. Part V

**Part 5: Warehouse Oracle**

The sun ends its pendulum swing across the sky quickly. I try to savor every fleeting moment of light, uncertain how long of an eternity the night will be.

The city rushes towards me at 70 miles an hour, a cluster of dark spires growing out of a dark mass of urban decay. From this distance, as the sun set behind me, it looks like some other, alien world.

I was coming home.

Woden was a puppet master to the Nth degree, and I had just cut his precious strings with a gun blast. But this Gepetto was going to wish on a star that I become a real corpse, and soon, once he realized his private ski team wasn't returning.

Already knowing I was heading into a trap gave me a slight advantage, but I had to proceed as if Woden was already wise to my escape. I didn't trust Ski-Boy _that_ much.

* * * *

Following the map the Ski Boys had conveniently marked out and left in the glove compartment, I soon found the industrial park where the _Njord Shipping_ corporation kept its warehouses. I keep the van's lights off, and cruise as quietly as I can through the shadowed alleys, keeping my attention to rooftops and dark spaces, anywhere someone might be trying to get a drop on intruders. But either there's no one there, or they're _that_ good, because I spot nothing.

Counting off building numbers, I finally spot #3 two warehouses away: it's a dilapidated, beige hulk, looking more like a big cardboard box left too long in the rain. The faint glow of lights from within tell me something is up, though.

I crawl the van into position in the shadows, aiming it straight at the big loading doors. I already know what's behind them. I've done this too many times before.

Hopping out of the van with as little noise as possible, I set to converting the Chevy into a cruise missile, weighing the gas pedal down with a rock, tying the steering wheel steady, and puncturing the fuel line with a utility knife. Putting the van in neutral, I start the engine, let it rev, and move the stick to D, launching myself backwards out of the van as it peels off, gas spouting behind it.

It knocks on the loading doors with a big hello of ripping metal and shattering glass. It comes to a stop about fifteen feet inside, jammed up against piles of shipping crates. For a moment inside the warehouse, the impact seems to have frozen time. Then the rats start creeping from their holes.

I see the familiar shapes of goons in suits, packing the kind of firepower that would make Saddam whine in envy. Four of them emerge at angles, two on either side of the van, and begin filling the driver's compartment with lead. The noise is enough to cover my own gunshot as the 9mm sparks off the line of gasoline that connects from my feet to the van. A ribbon of fire races towards the warehouse, reflecting light off the goons' cheap sunglasses as the gape at their own demise.

* * * *

Gun drawn, I creep around the perimeter of what's left of the warehouse. I get around the far side just in time to see a black Mercedes peeling away, dark shapes visible inside. I take a couple of pot shots at the rear window, but get only the spider-web cracks on bulletproof glass for my trouble. Turning back to the warehouse, I sidestep burning boxes and crisped body parts, looking for anything, or anyone, that can give me a clue as to my next step.

As I search, I find a crumpled but unburned body lying in a corner of the place. I push it over with my foot. Except for the fresh bullet hole in his forehead, Ski Boy #1 looks just as I left him: dumb. In his lifeless hand rests a cell phone. As I look at it, it starts to ring.

I gave myself three guesses as to who it would be, and two didn't count.

"Decided not to stay for the fireworks, Al?"

Woden was as cool as iced cucumber: "I prefer watching the 4th of July on television. Saves from having to deal with the crowds."

I flash my gaze to the inside corners of the building, and there, staring at me, is a security camera. I stare right back at it. "Look at my face, Woden, and remember it, because aside from the bullet I'm going to use to pluck out your good eye, it's the last thing you're ever going to see."

The lizard just chuckled. "Oh, I am thoroughly frightened now, Mr. Payne. But, let me tell you what I see in _your_ future: a lifetime of being on the run, and hiding from the law, and never knowing who you can trust. Between the two of us, I think I'll take my chances. Goodbye, Mr. Payne."

He clicks off, and I stand, mind blank, amongst the carnage. And as if to prove Woden's curse, I hear the blaring of sirens in the distance.

I pick up a new bad habit. I start running.


	6. Part VI

**From Russia with Guns**

With no idea into which hole Woden could have slithered into, I was stuck without many options as I hoofed it away from the warehouses. I had just begun a game that had no consolation prize. Fortunately, Woden and I both needed the same thing from each other: silence. As long as he knew I was an escapee with a double in prison, and as long as I knew enough to testify as to his very existence, getting the police involved was the furthest thing from either of our minds. That left only two options that provided each of us safety: trusting that the other would keep his mouth shut, or shutting the other's mouth for him. Permanently.

Of the two, trust is the harder thing to come by these days.

Having put enough distance between myself and the warehouses, I stop at a gas station to collect my thoughts and catch my breath.

"Ok," I think out loud, "so, who can a theoretically imprisoned mass murderer, who's actually free, turn to in his time of need?" I came to the answer in a reluctant instant.

I grabbed the purloined cell phone and dragged a number out of my memory.

"Vladimir? This is Max. Max Payne."

"Ah, Max! So good to hear from you! Though, I am surprised. Don't tell me you _dropped a **Dime**_ just for me! Hahahahaha!"

As dumb as the joke was, it was good to hear _something_ humorous after months of concrete walls and danger.

"Yeah, yeah. Look, Vlad, I'm in a bit of a fix, and I need a favor." Vlad's tone changed to less-than-enthusiastic.

"Oh, Max, you know I owe you big time. But get you out of the Big House? Too much even for Vladimir."

"Don't worry about that, Vlad. Look...I need you to meet with someone I'm giving a message to. I don't trust the phone. Can you be at the place where we first met in one hour?"

"Hm, first met _in person,_ or..."

"No. Where you brought the house down."

"Ah yes. I understand. Okay, one hour. How will I know this person?"

"Oh, you'll know."

* * * *

The building still bore the scars Vlad had blasted into it those many months ago. I'd almost have déjà vu, except for the fact that the spring temperature actually allowed normal people out on the streets at night, not just armed killers screaming out of the night at me.

A black import pulls up alongside me then, the passenger window sliding down. Instinctively, I reach inside my jacket for the 9mm. I didn't need to.

The look on Vlad's face was priceless.

"Max?! But, how...??"

"Long story, Vlad. Mind if I hop in? Open spaces tend to give me lead poisoning."

* * * *

I gave Vlad the Reader's Digest version of my arrest, imprisonment, escape, and the warehouse. He nodded grimly when I got to the present.

"So. This Woden was like Wolf in grandmother's clothes, and you are Little Red Hooding Ride, eh?"

"Yeah. Something like that."

"Okay. So, how can Vladimir help, Tovarisch?"

"I need whatever help you can give me in tracking Woden down. Besides the fact that he just tried to kill me, he's the only one who knows the whole truth about my escape, and he can hold that over my head for the rest of my life, if you can call it that."

Vlad scratched his chin thoughtfully, then shrugged and laughed warmly.

"Okay donkey, we will try. Hey, you got rid of many of my competitors. I owe you at least _something_ for all the money I've made with your help. But, come, we will leave business behind for tonight. At my townhouse I will treat you to wine, women, and cable television. You're not in prison anymore, my friend!"

For the first time in a long time, my grin matched Vlad's.

* * * *

Vlad's "townhouse" was more like a vertical mansion in one of the better downtown addresses. Red bricked and iron barred, Vlad and I waltzed inside the fortress like returning conquerors. And, as promised, there was plenty there to entertain: Vladimir had apparently diversified in the time I'd been locked up. Aside from the glass showcases holding weapons of various and exotic types, his houseguests included some of the better hookers the city had to offer, as well as samples of narcotics for all to enjoy. My initial bravado was fading as I was again reminded of how far I had fallen from my old life.

* * * *

After a day of leather couch lounging and lap dances, I'm beginning to think I could get used to a life as an anonymous enforcer for Vladimir. I'm getting comfortable. That's always my first mistake.

Like everything else, it starts with a gunshot, and learned instinct had me rolling for cover before there was any obvious reason to. Vladimir had the same impulse. Too bad the call girls didn't, because they were the first to go down.

Automatic fire sprays through the door to Vlad's penthouse, cutting down anyone not kissing the rug. I make like a lizard and belly-crawl my way to a display case, and smash it open with a paperweight. I don't risk raising my head to see what was in there, so I just grab whatever my hand landed on. Out comes an 800 year old Samurai sword.

Just as I was getting in touch with eastern philosophy, the bullet-tattered door was kicked in, and black-garbed professionals, looking like steroid enhanced ninjas, came swarming in. I counted five of them…then only four. Vlad was good for a head shot, and one went down. The remaining four rushed Vlad and subdued him. From my position, I could see the activity but, for the moment, they couldn't see me. I'd have to play this by ear. So I listened. While two of the ninjas held Vlad still, a third covered the room, while the fourth faced my comrade and played messenger:

"I bring greetings from Don Punchinello."

Vlad almost giggled. "Oh, you do? Where's your...how you say...Luigi Board? Because you must be talking for ghosts, my friend." That earned Vlad a fist in the gut. The Messenger continued like nothing had happened.

"The Don has become aware of your involvement in delivering Max Payne the resources with which he used to exterminate his loved ones. This knowledge has greatly angered Don Punchinello, and he would like to speak to you personally about the matter. Ok, now that I repeated the fancy shit I was told to say, get this vodka-sucking bitch outta here!"

The ninjas comply, dragging Vlad towards the door but, not one to go without a fight, Vlad struggles. That only got him a crack on the back of his head with the butt of an Uzi. In a flash, three of the ninjas were gone. That just left me and the Messenger, and I wasn't going to let old clichés stop me from killing him.

The Messenger began pacing around the room, turning over some of the hooker's bodies to get a twisted thrill from some dead, naked flesh. He turns his back to me and it's all the time I need. I leap at him, sword raised high, and scream like an angry boxer as I slice downwards, laying open the mook's back and part of his side. He gets out a pathetic yelp of surprise and pain as he reflexively tries to hold his guts together with his bare hands. He goes out with a whimper.

I pound down the stairs, passing dead guards and associates as I reach the front door, then have to dodge out of the doorway as the getaway car sprays small caliber fire in a brief drive-by. A screech of tires, and they're out of sight into the city.

This kind of activity, in this neighborhood, meant that I had _maybe_ five minutes before the boys in blue would show. I rush back into the townhouse, smash open display cases and grab as much guns n' ammo as I can carry, and then snag a gym bag to carry more. I'm out and on the street before I hear the first sirens.

* * * *

Vlad was my only lifeline. I needed his contacts, his money, and his influence to even have a hope of getting to Woden. This was a side trip I didn't want.

There was only one guy who'd have the balls, and the right, to claim the title of 'Don' in the Punchinello family. And if he was as big on tradition as I guessed, I knew exactly where he'd have set up shop: back at the Punchinello Mansion.

Using what skills I had at grand theft auto, I jacked the first decent car I came across, and loaded up, heading for the den of organized crime. Like it or not, it was time to pay Anton a house call. 


	7. Part VII

**Home is Where the Sadistic Mafia Hitman is**

When I was a kid, I thought that when you turned off the TV, the show stopped until you switched the set back on. One day, when I was six, my timing had been just right, and I turned it on just as a repeat of the show I had been watching when I had last shut it off began. For a moment, the theory was true. I learned the truth later, though. Perception is funny like that, sometimes. Then there are other times.

I thought I had shut down the Punchinello's the last time I flipped their switch. But now I was back on, full power, for a repeat.

I figure Anton's not going to be expecting me. My last couple of swipes at him had probably got him some sort of "merciful early release." That, or Unc's Will was finally settled, and Anton could afford to buy his way out. Either way, it had to have happened while I was still laid up at the prison hospital. So as far as he knew, I was still in the slammer. I smiled.

Unless he'd already tortured Vlad to the point where he knew the truth of my escape.

I frowned. Back to square one.

As I speed my stolen station wagon gradually towards the Punchinello mansion, I flip on the radio, hoping to drown out some of my racing mind with music, or current events. What I get is the familiar buzz of a newsflash:

_"We are LIVE at the crime scene. Behind me sits a veritable bloodbath in what police are calling the worst gangland conflict New York has seen in six months. I'm standing at the Park Avenue townhouse of the notorious drug and arms dealer, Vladimir Morozov. Morozov, who in recent months has been suspected of taking over the criminal territory formerly controlled by the Punchinello crime family, has apparently been kidnapped. Sources in the NYPD are speculating that tonight's attack and kidnapping was in revenge for the destruction, two nights ago, of a Njord Shipping Company warehouse. Njord Shipping has long been believed to be a front for illegal shipments made by the Punchinello crime family."_

The Punchinellos owned the Njord Company?? I had a thought: there are _no_ coincidences. But the beat went on: _"Police Detective Jim Bravura had this to say: _'The list of identified victims, as it stands at this moment, all appear to have either been members of Morozov's organization, or individuals known to be on his payroll. One, as yet unidentified body, is believed to be one of the assailants and is currently being examined for identification by the county coroner. We will release more information as it becomes prudent...but just let me add, on the chance the people responsible for this mess are listening: your kind aren't welcome in this town. The NYPD has taken down the likes of Gotti, Anton Punchinello, and Max Payne. Whoever you are, you don't have a prayer.'_Strong words from Detective Bravura. In other news..._

The pieces were beginning to fall together in my mind like a game of Tetris, and I didn't like the pattern they were forming. But whatever conspiracy theories I might have had brewing in my head were put on hold as I slowly pulled within shooting distance of the Punchinello mansion. With the car lights off, I set myself just far enough away to case the joint, but hopefully not close enough to be spotted. Unscrewing the scope from one of Vlad's rifles, I scanned the place monocular-style:

The first thing I notice is the construction: plastic tarps and scaffolding cover major portions of the house. It looks like Anton was stitching up my brief stint as an interior decorator. A new set of private security was out in force as well. From the looks of them, Anton had spared no expense: just from their faces and body language, I could tell that these guys were cold, professional mercs, not the run-of-the-mill blood-related goombahs. Two stood at post on either side of the front entrance like Royal Guardsmen. Another pair toured the main grounds in overlapping routes. There were others, I knew, that I just wasn't seeing. I had to get closer. Reattaching the scope to the rifle, I shoulder some gear and slip out of the wagon.

* * * *

I make like an F-117 as I stealth it to the tall privacy hedges that surround the mansion grounds. Dropping to my belly, I slither to a good vantage point in the moon-cast silhouettes, and carefully slide the barrel of the sniper rifle through the bushes. I scan my targets, debating on my next move. A frontal assault will have a small army out for my scalp quicker than marinara on meatballs. What I needed was a distraction. What I got, I hadn't expected.

Out of the corner of my eye, a shadowy figure made it's way up and over a security wall a couple of hundred yards to my right, and with gazelle-like speed raced across the main lawn towards the back of the estate. Whoever it was must have tripped some sort of security I hadn't spotted, because alarms began squawking, and the stone cold mercenaries began fanning out in the direction of the intruder. The ruckus left only the two sentry guards between me and entering the place. I didn't stop to think, just aimed my popgun and cleared the doorway in two quick sprays of red and bone.

* * * *

Once in the foyer, I start flashbacking like an acid-dropping hippie: mental still lifes of flying bullets and falling bodies, mooks in suits taking aim and the slow motion recollection of me returning fire and taking lives. This lasts maybe a half a second. Just long enough for the Mafiosos to hit the 'Reset' button.

I'm facing the main staircase, at the top of which two nervous looking suits are glancing around, hands full of gun, not knowing where the attack is coming from as the alarms blare. Obviously not the Stone Colds. These guys are Family. I think they mistake me for part of the hired help at first, as armed and as bold as I am in waltzing inside. Their hesitation is just what I needed. Dropping the sniper rifle I crouch and jump-roll to the left, pulling out two Berettas in the same, fluid motion. I end up on my feet, squatting low. I pause half a heartbeat, just long enough for their eyes to meet mine, and for the realization of the mistake they've made to register as I let the pistols play patty cake with their upper bodies. They go down hard.

As their guns clatter to the hardwood floor of the landing, the alarms cease yelling at me. I know I've only got minutes to get to where I need to go, and no security sirens to cover the noise of my movements. Painfully, I pull the floor plan of the mansion from the violence of my memory. Anton would want to keep Vlad away from the cops if they happened to storm the place. Out of sight. The wine cellar.

I retrace my months-old steps through the ground floor rooms, the Berettas waving back and forth as I cross every threshold, finding nothing as I near the kitchen. Then, behind that last door, a sound: chewing. A carrot, I think. Guess I'm huntin' wabbit.

"What da hell's all that racket out there?" That's one. The one chewing. Wabbit.

"I'm not sure. Maybe the 'Commandos' spotted a tin can and felt compelled to put it out of its misery." A smart-mouth. Brainiac. That's two. I don't hear any other voices. I holster the Berettas and pull out an Ingram. Taking a couple of steps away from the door, I tap the base of it with my toe, knocking. One of them steps towards it. I don't have the hat, mask, or the sword, but I draw the mark of Zorro across the door in small caliber rounds. There's a scream, a thump, and I duck to the right as hollow points drill their way through the air I just occupied. For my trouble, I hear a "Muthafuka!" Must be Wabbit. Brainiac would have come up with something a lot more articulate.

I dive low, shouldering the door open and sliding across the bloody linoleum just as Wabbit is stepping through the door down to the cellar. I swipe the Ingram horizontally, catching him twice in each calf. Losing control of his legs, he pitches forward with a whimper, down the concrete stairs. I hear a wet crack of bone and a sharp gasp as he hits bottom. Broken back maybe, or neck. Either way, Wabbit's not going anywhere. I haul myself to my feet, my arm covered in Brainiac's still oozing blood. I slam my back to the wall, facing the doorway downstairs, and listen. At first, I get nothing, but like eyes in a dark theater, my hearing adjusts to the quiet, and I begin to catch hard violence not too far away: moans and the sounds of fist hitting bone, coughs of something liquid, and snarls. I hear a curse in battered Russian.

I'm cruising down the stairs before I know it, checking corners, stepping over Wabbit, whose head is looking up at me from an anatomically impossible angle. I come to a turn in the dingy hallway, and switch my ears back on. A walkie talkie breaks the quiet:

"Sir, two of our men are dead, and we've found another pair, yours, dead in the foyer. I suggest you relocate to a secured- HOLD IT!" *BLAM* _That_ conversation was over. Whoever had just got the message tried to respond, but it sounded like a steam kettle trying to sing happy birthday.

"hEy! *wheeze* taLk tA Me, gudAMMit! *cough!*" I roll my head around the corner just far enough to grab a look at Mr. Whisper.

Anton looked like the last member of the lasagna line of the Frankenstein Family Tree: big, scarred, Italian, and ugly. He still had that shaved gorilla look, but this time in a crisp Armani suit. Added accessories included the long, jagged scar that ran across his throat, and its mate that bisected his eyeline. And though I could see he was now, artificially, Woden's twin for having lost an eye, he still had one working peeper. Sort of. They must have done some transplant rush job, because that one eye looked too big, off-white, and bugged out to have been naturally grown. That, plus it didn't seem to be winking. A steady stream of tears ran down his face, but he looked anything but sad. The bug-eye had only one thing in its crosshairs at the moment: Vlad, battered, bloody, and tied to a metal chair. He wasn't moving.

They say that losing a keen ability of one of the five senses can cause the body to compensate by enhancing one or more of the others. Anton's body must have grown bat ears, because as soon as I stepped into the room my face met his backhanded hamhock of a fist, and I hit floor like a sack of bricks. In my doubled vision, I saw twin monstrosities looming over me.

"pAyNE?! *wheeze* hOw tH' helL?" I try to form words, but all that comes out is "It wasn't...me...was the...one-eyed man..." Next thing I know I'm floating, giant hands lifting me into the air like a magician's assistant. Rolling my head to the side, I think I see a large knee lining up to break my fall, and my back. Somewhere, I hear a gunshot. I fall, and hit something hard. The dust tells me it's floor. Then the giant stomps out of view. My vision blurs, but my ears are sharp:

"WhoEvaH yA aRe *hisss* yEr a deAD mA- whA? SweEt chEEks? *cough!* iS daT YoU? WhUt're yoU *wheeze* dOin'- waiT! NO!"

Another gunshot. A long, aching pause. A heavy thud. As my senses creak back to something near normal, I'm pretty sure Anton is dead. I stumble to my feet and out into the hallway, a gun I don't remember picking up wobbly raised. I do my best to keep it level at Anton's killer.

"Fancy meeting you here, Max. Been a long time."

I sigh.

"Hi, Mona." I pass out. 


	8. Part VIII

**Big Trouble in Little Tokyo**

I feel like I'm swimming. Bright blobs of light pass above me, and muffled, garbled words enter my ears. Through the fog of semi-consciousness, I hear my Michelle's voice…then my mother's…then Mona's. The kaleidoscope of pain and nausea begins to sharpen, and I almost understand…and then I'm asleep.

* * * * 

I awake to warmth and steam and the smell of heady incense. I slit my eyelids to let my vision bleed through. Crimson light filters into the room through a thin red curtain covering a small doorway. Makes it look like I've got blood on my hands. I look again. I do.

Glancing around with hurting eyes, I get a distinct 'East meets West' feeling. The walls of the small room are covered in Asian-patterned wallpaper and small scrolled paintings of landscapes with Japanese lettering framing brushstrokes of tranquil mountainscapes.

It takes a minute to get my bearings. I'd been laid out on a cot in the back room of a Japanese restaurant, I guessed, judging from the bustle and clinks and smells of a busy kitchen in the background.

I move to sit upright and I'm rewarded with a shriek of pain jabbing inside my injured skull. I nearly lose my balance. A hand I didn't see coming grabs my shoulder and keeps me from toppling over. Instinct gets the better of me, and I have the stranger twisted and flat on his stomach in an instant, his arm bent at an angle only the Marquis de Sade would find comfortable. I press my knee into his back…and then realize it's just a kid. I let up on the bodylock. But only slightly.

"The first words out of your mouth better be ones I like, kid. Otherwise you'll be unzipping your fly one-handed until you're in your grave." My voice is raspy, and unused. How long had I been out? 

The kid isn't as soft as I might have thought. Most thugs I'd pull this move on would have soiled their shorts already. But save for a couple of grunts at the pain of skeletal manipulation, the kid stayed calm. And his story didn't start out half bad either.

"Mona brought you here," he blurted, teeth gritted. "She said it was safer for you to stay off the radar until you could recover. My family owes her a debt, and hiding you here is part payment for that."

Keeping my weight against the kid I steal a glance past the curtain. No gorillas with machine guns screaming after me, just tired looking cooks and busboys and the flames of an open grill. I must be having a good day.

I give the kid some slack and release my hold on him, teetering back onto the cot. The dizziness returns quickly. I try to rub the swimming of my senses away. "What's your name?"

The kid stands slowly, giving me the once-over like he's not sure giving me his name won't lead to him being slammed back on to the floor. "Henry. Henry Wong." I crack a grin and mumble some thing about how many Wong numbers there are in the phonebook. Henry either ignores it or doesn't hear it. Whatever.

"Ok Henry. How long have I been here?" The kid takes a second to measure his response. My potential trust in this boy begins to drop.

"Well, you've been unconscious, in this room anyway, for two days. But you were out when Mona brought you in, so I couldn't say for sure. But today's the 17th, if that helps anything."

I nod, grimacing in pain from the movement of my neck. "Ok, three days. She must have drugged me. I've been smacked stupid with baseball bats that didn't make me feel this groggy." I suddenly remembered something important, and I'm sure my face, filling with wide-eyed recollection told Henry the same thing. "There was another man, one Mona would...should have had with her. Tough looking guy, black shirt and jeans. Has a Russian accent. Is he here too?" Henry's face said enough. Vlad was either dead...or maybe just being hidden somewhere else. Probably made sense not to keep the two of us in one spot, but still...

"Look," Henry pulls the curtain back a bit, the intruding light adding another ache to my already long list, "no one's come looking for you the whole time you've been here. I know you've gotta be hungry...c'mon. My mom makes the best tempura in town." Though I'm still wary, my stomach suddenly agrees with the kid. He helps me to my feet and I've got a teenage crutch all the way to a booth in the restaurant. I feel like an old man.

The food helps. I take it slow at first, feels like my stomach has shrunk. But soon I'm eating again like a bad habit. And the kid was right: the tempura gives new meaning to my life.

Henry sits with me, and the conversation clears some things up. His family owns the restaurant and Mona, a long-time customer, stopped a robbery a couple of years back the old fashioned way. Old fashioned as in Bang, Bang. Apparently the word got out to local thugs that "The Frying Dragon" had a dark guardian angel, and there hadn't been a robbery attempt since. At least by local thugs. That's when Henry laid out the rest.

"You look like you watch movies. Heard of the Yakuza?"

My ears perk up along with my trigger finger. I didn't know all the history, but I had the basic idea. Yakuza: La Cosa Nostra dubbed in Japanese. Whatever the language, it meant trouble. Henry went on.

"They're really our only worry now. I mean, they do make sure the neighborhood's safe...sorta. But they charge all the shop owners for protection. It wasn't ever that bad, I guess. But Mom says they've been asking for more and more lately. If it keeps up...well, I dunno what will happen." I could've given the kid my personal forecast, but he looked like the type that didn't need to be told the score. I drink my tea.


	9. Part IX

**BTILT** Continued...

I get a hard day's night in the back room. The cot feels like heaven, now that I'm lucid enough to enjoy it. Thankfully, I don't dream.

The next morning I rise early, and do the best job of washing up I can in the restroom before heading out into the restaurant. I pick out a booth to relax in, maybe snag some breakfast when the staff gets there. I pick a corner booth. In an old cowboy movie I learned to always sit in a corner with a view of the door when you're out in the open: nobody can sneak up behind you, and you know exactly who's coming and going. Who'd have thought a cowboy movie would save my skin?

Henry was off at school, but had told his mother the night before that I'd need some food so, experienced host that she was, had risen before me to start some breakfast. Momma-san brought me a cup of tea to start with, and we talked a bit. She was a sweet old lady, short but strong. One of those tough birds who'd seen enough bad times that they were chiseled hard to the world, but still had the heart to look for hope in people. I liked her. I wouldn't get the chance to know her better.

I'm halfway through my tea when the Yakuza comes back to mind. I'm thinking, maybe there's just something about this tea that conjures the subject of ruthless gangsters. Or maybe it's the pack of war dogs coming through the front door.

They're a five-man dead cow brigade, all dressed in black leather coats, secret service shades and attitudes that say "back off" without an uttered syllable. I'd seen their kind before, mostly bloody and dead on the pavement in front of me. I wasn't scared of them. Neither was Momma-san.

"Hey! HEY! You go! No more from you! Already this month! Go!" Despite the dire threat in the atmosphere, I had to give Momma-san an inward grin. The hoods hesitated at her commands, but only long enough for their tempers to flare. Before I could blink two of the goons had taken spots on either side of the front doors, one was watching the kitchen entrance, and another was watching me. The fifth, the biggest one, middle-weight Sumo man, glided to Momma-san with more grace than I would have imagined someone of his bulk could pull off.

If I had a gun, I would do something, but the bulges in the Brigade's coats spoke of more heat than I had oven mitts to handle. I could only watch as Sumo grabbed Momma-san by the apron and gave her a slap across the face that sounded like a thunderclap. She was dazed. He was calm. I was boiling.

"You listen here, little mother. Prices are going up, and we need payment today. You'll have to sell a few more noodles is all. Now, scurry off to the safe and bring us what we want." Momma-san regained herself, scowled, and spat right into the goon's face.

Like I said, chiseled hard.

Sumo-man flinched, and it was all the excuse he needed. He dropped Momma-san to the floor, and in a move too smooth to betray any sense of mercy, pulled out his 9mm and delivered to Momma-san something that can't ever be taken back.

I wanted to just grit my teeth, bear to out and live to get back at these animals, but this is me we're talking about.

The goon watching me must not have expected such rash action from his partner because at the gunshot he turns fast, hand inside coat for his own cannon. I push the sorrow and rage away from my mind _hard_ and use the distraction, grabbing a table knife and whirling to my feet, giving dragon-man an eyeful through his sunglasses and stealing his gun in the process.

I drop and roll as the Brigade see what's happening and fire in reply. I make it into a nearby booth and kick the table on its side to shield me from the hail of lead. I see Sumo out of the corner of my eye finally show some semblance of having been born a mammal and go to his injured associate, trying to pry the flatware from his bleeding skull while he writhes on the floor. I take the opportunity to send a bullet into the fat man's ankle.

I jump up and dive to the side. Adrenaline, fear, whatever it was starts pumping through my body like an old instinct, and time seems to pause in mid-air while I aim and pull the trigger. Packets of lead streak through the air, coppery hornets stinging into two of the Brigade's necks, while another bores itself into the middle of the third's face. Like a sportscast instant replay, Sumo turns and bolts towards the kitchen, knocking tables over as he goes, a culinary linebacker.

By the time I regain my feet and grab an extra weapon, Sumo has hobbled his way out the kitchen and into the breaking daylight. I know it's useless to run outside if I don't know where I'm going. I make sure the door is bolted tight and turn back to the restaurant.

I stare down at Momma-san, a look of firm determination now etched forever on her ashen face. She died well, standing up against the forces of evil. I take a rumpled tablecloth from the floor and lay it over her, saying a silent word of respect. Then the fire comes back to my eyes, and I turn their heat towards Mr. Butterknife.

He's still groaning on the floor, flat on his back, hands shaking near the knife handle, probably not sure which would be worse: leaving the blunt piece of metal in, or ripping it out of his own eye socket.

I crouch over the mook, tapping the muzzle of my purloined 9mm against the unbroken sunglass lense. "You've seen the movies, right? This is the part where you tell me where the rest of your mob are, or I pluck out that other eye of yours. Comprende?"

Butter spits out what he thinks is the "honorable" thing to me: "N-never! Never...betray my...my brothers...."

"Y'know," I muse with more humor than I actually feel, "I remember in this one TV show, the hero hated guns, and whenever he found one he'd always use it for something other than shooting people. He'd toss it like a boomerang, or use the gunpowder from a bullet to burn a wound clean; y'know, brainy stuff. Me, I'm too dumb for that." I flip the 9mm in my hand, gripping the barrel tight and letting the fury belt out from my throat in seductive tones of menace. "Me, I just see it like...oh, like a _hammer_. And damned if that knife in your eye don't look a _helluva_ lot like a nail to me." I hover the butt of the pistol grip over the end of the knife, letting it come in contact _ever_ so slightly.

Butter screams and gets the idea quick as a nerve impulse. He spills the info quick as lightning. Then I stand up and shoot him, quick as dead.

I've got an address, two guns, four clips of ammo, and a kid soon to come home to a murdered mother. I also have a new enemy, The Yakuza.

Time to go start an international incident. 


	10. Part X

(**Note:** Apologies to all of you who have been requesting continuations over the last few months. Life has a way of stepping in and curtailing one's writing time and inspiration. But, I promise to see this story through till the final gunshot. - CM)

**The Emperor's New Clothes are a Death Shroud**

On the street. Morning.

The sun cracks behind me like a sleepy eye too long for dreaming, and casts my shadow forward, a long stretch of darkness I'm running towards, but whose end I can never seem to reach.

I'm fueled on adrenaline and rage, and I've gone feral: my nose sniffs out the rhythmic splats of life left behind by my fleeing quarry. Red blood. Black asphalt. A breadcrumb trail through a forest of concrete and steel.

But Sumo's no Ninja, no silent stalker fading into the shadows. He's a wounded bull, with no China shops to run to here.

Life begins to wake with the day, people rising and going to work. Little Tokyo, outpost of the rising sun. It's an amalgam of eastern patterns bolted on to western skeletons, bringing an exotic respectability to an otherwise dingy environment.

I do my best to conceal my pursuit, trying to appear as just another schmo late for work, or a date, or a vendetta. But New York is what it is, and a gaijin speeding down the street in a leather jacket, frothing at the mouth with anger, raises nary an eyebrow. But it's the eyes I worry about, which are connected to the mouths, which might connect themselves to a phone, and from there the police. Or worse. I had to find Sumo, and quickly. Surprisingly, it's the eyes that tell me where to go.

If you want to keep yourself out of someone's business, you turn shy. You become ignorant. When that business is yours, but you want to conceal it, you can't help but become slightly proactive. Like, say, three Asian guys wearing obvious gang colors and forming a little arm-folded human fence in front of a tenement doorway, and doing their best to look casual, their eyes intentionally looking everywhere but at me.

As far as I can tell, my birthday wasn't yesterday. And since I wasn't born yesterday, today must be just like any other day. And these days, any other day means a bad one. Figured I might as well get an early start.

I make like I'm just going to jog right on past Larry, Moe and Curly at the door, but I stop short, making a face like a dough-eyed tourist: "Excuse me, but have you seen a fat and shot man pass by here?"

The bluntness of the question catches all three off-guard, and Moe in the middle starts trying to say something, but his mouth can't seem to keep pace with his brain. It looks like a badly dubbed Kung-Fu movie. Always liked those. But I'm not laughing when Larry on the left moves to pull something from his waistband. I wag my finger at him: "Now now, if your big friend is running from me, just think what I can do to _you_. You've got three seconds to decide whether the rest of your life goes on out there," I motion to the rest of the bright world behind me, "or ends here on this doorstep." I think I actually see the sparks of rational thinking flicker behind the three sets of eyes.

There's a long pause as we stand there, and I look from face to face and, for a second, I'm thinking I can walk right on past. So I do. But as I reach the top of the four steps to the door I hear the scuff of one of the Stooges turning on his heel and I duck fast, a karate punch swishing through the air where my head was, cracking solidly into the hard metal front door. I hear his knuckles shatter. I spin in my crouch, note that Curly is nursing his ruined hand, and that Larry and Moe are moving to take their own swings. I keep my right foot flat on the landing, and grab the railing to my right. Using the railing to pull my body into a spin I sweep out with my left leg, the hard toe of my shoe catching Moe in the side of his knee, snapping it in a direction not advised in the _Human Body Users Manual_.

That leaves Larry, now fumbling for whatever he had hidden away in his pants. I give him a heartbeat or two to make the final choice he ever will. Finally, with a look of vicious triumph on his face, he pulls out a switchblade. I just look at him while his friends moan in agony beside him.

"When you're a Jet, you're a Jet all the way, huh Larry? Don't you know not to bring a knife to a gunfight?" I don't wait for an answer. Neither does the bullet as it plants a red badge of dead across his chest. I stand, looking down at the would-be WarDogs as they moan along with the throbbing of their wounds: "Bad doggies. _Stay._ I head inside.

As I shut the metal door firmly behind me, I make sure to bolt and lock it tight. Wouldn't do to have reenforcements or the police jump me that easily. I turn, and have to gape slightly.

If a portion of a Japanese palace could have been beamed like so much Spock from the old country to here, that's what the place looked like: lush red carpeting, golden statues of mythical beasts, and ancient urns depicting stories of lost glory. It looked like a museum; a showcase of a noble and ancient culture. But it was too showy, _too_ outlandish; a white-wash over sour mold. Someone was trying to legitimize himself. I had a feeling I knew who it might be, too.

I knew that Sumo was not the Big Boss: a bag man shaking down old ladies is not exactly management material. But, he's most likely having to explain his failure to the head Dragon himself right now. And head Dragons like to be able to look out upon their grand domain. The building had four floors. Top o' the world, Momma-san.

I find the elevator almost instantly: gilded brass, open and inviting. Had a bad experience with elevators once. I duck inside, hit the button for the fourth floor, then duck back out again. The doors close and I'm loping towards the carpeted staircase at the end of the lobby, gun raised, checking corners. I might have hit it just right, and maybe it's too early for the goon squad to be out in force. But as I get up the first flight of stairs, I hear the muffled chime of the elevator hitting the top floor, and the following sprays of automatic fire. I make a silent prayer of thanks that I wasn't a fish in that particular barrel.

I move like SWAT up the stairs, through floor 2, which looks like a private, more extravagant version of Mamma-san's restaurant. Chez Yakuza. I pad upward to floor 3, and the smells I find there tell me of opium, gun oil, and money. Ideas of arson dance in my head once this is all over. It's as I ascend towards floor 4 that I start to get nervous. I hadn't seen anyone in this building yet, which meant they were all waiting for me. I stop. I take a gamble.

Heading back to the elevator, I hit the button to call it down, and in a moment it dings hello. I greet the opening doors with a quick scan of my gun barrel. The back wall could have won a swiss cheese competition, but otherwise it's empty. I step in. I hit button 4. I make another prayer.

I duck low and to the side of the car as it dings for the top floor, and I'm gratified to see two leather-clad backs facing me as the doors open, their guns aimed toward the staircase I almost came up. I jump forward, the adrenaline thrusting through my nervous system, and the world takes on football slow-mo. I aim casually, kicking four shell casings out of the 9mm to fall like a spring drizzle to the soft carpet. Each goon gets a double-tap to their heads, and I'm getting back on my feet as their brains are added to the decor of this pagoda of pain. I turn and, as usual, there the long hallway, terminating in a large pair of thick wooden doors, sporting ceremonial carvings of mountain sides and dragons. The mountain parts, and out hobbles Sumo.

He's shirtless, revealing a torso more muscle than fat. The ankle has been bandaged, and his right hand is roughly wrapped in white cloth, a smear of red oozing larger as I look at it. But whatever happed to his hand didn't matter next to the stock of the M-60 it held aloft. My body dove before my brain registered that I had to move, and tufts of red carpet kicked into the air as the line of heavy caliber rounds cut a line in the floor where I had just been standing. My leap had been rough, and so was my landing, banging my shoulder against a wooden statue adorned with full Samurai armor. I scoot to put the ancient steel between me and the doomsday gun, reloading one gun and filling my hand with the other. I take a breath. Sumo roars behind me like an angry god. I hear the clack of the gun being leveled. I move.

I plant my feet and push back, tipping the statue forward and giving Sumo something to focus his fire on for the split-second I need. I roll towards the middle of the hall as the Samurai erupts in a shower of sparks and ricochets. I feel a hot pain in my arm. I ignore it. I snap my torso around and aim at Sumo as I land, over-extending my back but bringing my aim true and straight. I open up the whoop-ass like a present on Christmas Day. Three rounds strike the M-60, turning it into not much else than a steel club. The other three rounds find Sumo's bicep, shoulder and neck. He falls to his knees, the gun clattering softly onto the lush carpet. He grasps at the neck wound, blood spouting impressively from what can only be a ripped artery. For a second, he looks like a macabre Buddha, bald and large and serene, seeing his destiny as clearly as epiphany, as dark as sin.

I shuffle to him, finally acknowledging the pain in my shoulder and feeling something warm and wet running down the sleeve of my jacket. Sumo stares up at me, and tries to speak but all that comes out is a gurgling sound. I stand there for a minute, as we bleed together. His face is losing its color, he'll bleed out eventually. I raise a muzzle to stare at his skull, think better of it, and plant a round through each of his knees. He screams wetly, curling into a ball on the floor. I picture Momma-san in the same position, back at the restaurant. Let him suffer. Life is suffering. And then you die.

I walk past the blubbering Sumo towards those big, dark doors. I fire through them, to make whoever might be in there to seek cover and give me another few seconds to assess the situation. The warmth along my arm is increasing, my vision getting blurry. I press onward. I open the gateway to the Dragon. He's there, sitting calmly at his desk: Gucci suit, primped and preened like a Grand Master and just as deadly. I know who he is.

When Alex and I started on the Valkyr case, one of our first leads gave us a whiff towards Little Tokyo, and the local crimelords there. Alex had heard rumors that Valkyr was an opium derivative, whose recipe was similar to drugs coming from overseas. The lead never panned out though, and not long after we caught on to Lupino's gang. But the one guy who was at the top of the list until then was the Dragon I was staring down now: Abraham "The Emperor" Hirohito. His father loved America so much after immigrating, he named his son after one of our better Presidents. Harvard educated, Abraham had inherited his family's shipping business and made a killing. I guess he graduated to Yakuza boss along the way.

I noticed the little guillotine, and the severed pinky that was its victim, sitting on the corner of the desk. Guess Sumo paid double for his failure at the restaurant. I raise my gun.

"This was a detour I wasn't looking for Emperor, but there's a little old lady's ghost looking for some payback, and I mean to deliver it. Have anything catchy to say before I...." I trail off, my eyes lolling slightly in dizziness, and then regaining focus. I see something else laying on the desk, and my vision is green: not from envy, but from something that fills a small vial. A vile vial. Valkyr. "That such a horrid thing could bear such an anciently noble title. Valkyr indeed." Emperor picked up the object of my revulsion, turning it over in his hand. It took me a second to get it straight in my head what I was seeing, because I could have sworn there was an explosion or two...or three...or five...back in my past that had meant the end of Valkyr production.

"You're Max Payne, aren't you? I had heard you were put away. I suppose I must revise my information." He got up. My muzzle followed, but he moved as though he didn't have a care in the world. "Oh, don't act so bullish Mr. Payne. You won't kill me. Not yet at least. You're too curious about where the Valkyr came from. Yes, I know of your exploits. Interesting attempt at becoming the city's number one drug lord, systematically murdering all of your associates and competitors. For that, I am impressed." He crossed over to a cabinet, opened it, and placed the vial with its brothers in a chemistry-set test-tube holder. Closing the cabinet, the Emperor turned back to me looking, of course, imperious. Enough with this super-villain bullshit.

I fire twice, cutting Dishonest Abe's ankles out from under him. He goes down like all the big ones do: hard. The imperiousness was gone and I loomed over him, reaching down to pull him up by his collar. My spittle peppers his face as I bark through gritted teeth: "You're wrong, Emperor. I _am_ going to kill you. But you're not going to _die_ any time soon."

I yank off his shoes, and grab the little guillotine from the desk.

Let's play..._This...Little...Piggy..._.

* * * *

part 11 coming soon (promise!) 


	11. Part XI

**The Biblical Sense**

In the past, my family was the light. In the darkness of the world in which I existed, my wife and baby stood as the ray of goodness that drove away the evils of the street, and the apathy of a careless world. Even in death, their memory used to be a bright shining flame. But as I stood over my latest victim, maimed, bleeding on the floor, I knew that they had faded. They were a single, burning ember in the oubliette that my soul had become. And what I had just done threatened to snuff it out forever.

_Be wary of the evil, lest evil you become._

The Emperor was hobbled. The first toe put him in shock. He barely noticed the second. But by three, and then four, his senses returned and he had spilled the beans. And the mashed potatoes, and the fried chicken, and everything else on the buffet. In my crimson fury I had found out more about the Emperor than I had ever wanted to know. And now he huddled in a ball on the floor sobbing, blood oozing from his ruined foot. I was staring at him, but my vision went beyond him, trying to rationalize this.

I raised the gun mechanically, old impulse, finger flexing on the trigger. Old habits. Dying hard. The usual. But I was numb, not even enough rage left to really care if I sent a bullet into this...person. I would regret it later, I knew, but I needed to get away from this. Needed to think.

I tie Hirohito up with telephone cord and gagged him tight, stuffing him under his big expensive desk. Might not last forever, but it would keep him out of action, hopefully long enough for me to get a jump on what he had told me. I sneek out through the fire escape to the street below, replacing the blood-soaked aroma of the criminal pagoda with the pungent odor of smog and exhaust. I was in a daze of conflict. What had I become? Was I still in this to avenge the innocent? Those that had killed my family were all dead. Justice had been served. But now I was doing it for vengeance, and survival. But torturing a man, even one as slimy as the Emperor...

I had to push that aside. There were bigger things going on. Through his whimpers, Emperor had confessed that he had been approached by a "mysterious group" to facilitate distribution of Valkyr across Europe and Asia. That had been a year ago. That had to have been Nicole Horne. But someone had shown up a week ago, claiming they represented the enterprise under "new management." Emperor was more than happy to start the project anew. He had the contacts across the water to get things going, but his shipping concern was being watched too closely by the Feds to deliver the goods himself. "Don't worry," they told him, "we have others working on that."

Who was my enemy now? Who would have the knowledge and the callousness to revive the Valkyr menace? Who had I left alive?

Emperor was to oversee the first shipment tonight, to be loaded on to a freighter at the docks. A bit of insurance, so Hirohito could assure his partners of what they were getting in return for all their hard-stolen money. I had a few hours to kill, and it was best I put some distance between me and my latest assault. Besides, I wasn't feeling so hot. Gunshot wounds can do that to a guy. I needed help.

I stumbled through the urban landscape, my mind swimming with thoughts of guilt, revenge, pain...it all became a blur. And so did my vision. I stumbled. I fell. And I didn't stop falling.

* * * *

In the dream I'm running, a pale sun shining behind me, laughing in the voice of my wife, getting dimmer and dimmer with each step away from it. And my shadow is there, too, keeping pace behind me, getting closer. I run faster, but it's glued to me, forever a part of me. I turn to face it, and it stops as well, staring at me. A knife appears, and I bend to try and cut it away from where it connects at my feet. I slice through the shaded legs like they were fabric, and then I'm done. And it's released. It's free. And it grins at me.

_What have I done?_

* * * *

I open my eyes, and the pain lets me know I'm still alive. The next thing that registers is the light, near sundown, warming my face. I turn to look, and I see a priest.

"A crimefighter and a priest walk into a bar..." I mumble, mostly to myself.

"What was that, my son?" He's as old as my mom's bible, and about as soft around the edges. Already I feel guilty.

"Where am I?"

"St. Mark's. I found you lying on the doorstep, unconscious. I almost called the police...but I had a feeling that might do you more harm than good, right now." Color me shocked: a cool priest.

I sat up slowly. My arm had been bandaged like a pro, and I could already feel the strength returning. It had been a through-and-through, thankfully. "Where did you learn to bandage like that? It's a bit more than basic first-aid." He smiled at me, but it was a smile more of grim remebrance than of kindness.

"I was a medic in Vietnam. Haven't had to treat a gunshot wound in a long, long time. But, it's like riding a bike. I'm Father Roy."

"Max."

"Well, Max, I have a decision to make. I'm sure you know what it is. But I'd like to hear from you first before I make it."

I gave him a steady look. I could just bolt, push him aside and get on with what I had to do. Besides, enough good people had already been drawn into and destroyed by the chaos that surrounded my life; no need to drag another innocent along with me. But I knew I couldn't, knew that I owed this man my life, and that meant something, still meant something, even in this world.

"I guess...I guess I need to give confession, Father."

* * * *

I feel Holy claustrophobic in the small booth. It's dark, the only illumination coming from the booth aside me, barred in a fine mesh. Father Roy is there, waiting, and I try to find the words. What pours out of me is my long tale of tragedy and revenge, hatred and fear, blood and bullets. It seems an impossible story as I tell it, a grim faerie tale whose end hasn't been written, but almost certainly won't finish with anyone living, Happily Ever After or otherwise.

And then it's done, told as far as I've taken it. I'm answered with silence, and in the small box I'm hoping, praying even, that I'll find some sort of absolution. The silence kills.

"That's...quite a story." Understatement of the year, Padre. "The Bible does say 'an eye for an eye,' but it also says 'revenge is _mine_, so sayeth the Lord.' It's a contradiction that has puzzled mankind for thousands of years. At what point is justice pass into vengence?" I wasn't sure if he was asking me a question, or putting me to the test. I decided not to find out.

"Father, all I know is that I have to see this to its end. I won't blame you if you call the police, and I won't put up a fight if they corner me. But so long as there are people I _know_ I can stop in time to save others...I have to do it. Too many innocents have been lost in all of this, and if it's my soul I have to sacrifice to save one more, then it's worth it." He sighs heavy, a sigh of resignation.

"I cannot breach the Holy confessional. I will not turn you over to the authorities. I can only ask that you do so, of your own free will. Even if you reach the end of this Max, you'll never, ever be truly free of it. Think of the man you were. Does he like the man you've become?"

I stood up, flexed my arm a little, savored the ache. "No Father, the man I was doesn't like the man I've become." I open the door to step out but, before I do, I turn back slightly. "But he also doesn't stop me from doing what he knows has to be done. What does _that_ say about who I was?"

I leave before he can give me an answer, but I don't think there's any to give. Maybe _that's_ the answer.

The sun has already set by the time my feet are back on the street. I check my watch: 2 hours before the meet. I catch a taxi. And as I sit in the overused back seat of the urban chariot, approaching a fate I can't see, I watch the people of the city going about their lives at night. I used to be one of them, once. But now I was an unseen gladiator, representing the goodness the world seemed to have forgotten, achieving its goals by using evil's own tricks against it. I feel the weight of the guns in my pockets.

Time to lighten them up a little.

(whew! Part 12 on the way...) 


	12. Part XII

**Shooting On The Dock Of The Bay**

The night is warm in the fading heat of the springtime sun. In the distance, I can hear the gentle and continuous roar of moving water. Somewhere, a lonely tug moans its warning call, and a buoy dings out the beats like a fast-paced boxing match. I had been here before.

I had the taxi drop me off about five blocks away from the docks so I could take some time to case the area. Even this late in the day, the area still bustled with activity: shipments being loaded on and off, containers being moved from place to place. Commerce, the lifeblood of America. But there was one particular commodity of trade on which I meant to place something even more certain than taxes: death. Death to Valkyr, once and for all, and death to whoever had decided to become its new delivery boy.

I knew only to find Pier 13, the unluckiest Pier on the lot. I took to the roofs, scaling a warehouse a couple of blocks from my destination. I stop for a moment, reaching the top, and gaze up at the roof of the world: black velvet peppered with a million diamonds. I'd feel sentimental, if I were capable anymore.

The Pier is also bustling. To the normal passerby, it would look like any other busy crew getting their goods locked up and loaded as fast as was safe. But I knew the secret beneath the play-acting, and the plot smelled like milk left five days in the sun.

The freighter carried the name _Nemesis_, and the title fit the grim-colored hulk like a glove. Goons crawled over it's surface like worshipers making offerings to some dark god, filling its cavernous orifices with green blood.

Maybe I ought to go back and get Father Roy. This place could use an exorcism.

I slide back to the street and stick to the shadows, gain ground foot by foot, getting closer to my target. I scope the goons more closely, and wince: most of these guys are legit dock workers, probably with no idea what it is they're loading, just doing what they've been hired to do. That's both good and bad: good, because they're not all hired security, and won't be risking their necks for someone else's merchandise; bad because that put a lot of innocents in the way of what I had to do. Had to separate the wheat from the chaff, and I'd have to do it from the inside.

I walk out boldly, putting on my best teamster scowl of a guy who's spent too much time hauling other people's crap, and grab a crate from a push cart, hefting it onto my shoulder and heading for the gangplank. No one stops me, no one asks me what I'm doing there. Just another working-class hero.

"Hey! Hold up!" Damn.

He's a big one, Sumo's American cousin. All muscle, little fat. I fight not to gulp in anticipation of a knuckle entree to the mouth.

"You're not on Tony's crew...but, I know you, don't I? What ship ya work on?"

"I, uh...did a lot of work on the _Charon_ last year." Well, it wasn't technically a lie.

"Oh yeah...ok. Well, catch ya later." He stomps off to whatever he was doing. I turn back to where I was going. My heart keeps on pounding.

I reach the top of the walkway and I'm hit by the cool breeze from the harbor, unblocked by the weight of the ship. There's a briny smell to it, and for a second I'm back at the Jersey shore. Summer. Michelle. Old ghosts brightening the darkest of nights. Needed to clear the area. I drop the crate. I raise my gun high.

The first gunshot makes them stop. The second makes them turn. The dockworkers stare up at me.

"_Scram!!_" punctuated by a third bullet singing New York, New York over the harbor behind me. Wheat from the chaff. The wheat flees, the chaff cocks one into their chambers.

Two pound up the gangplank towards me, pulling out Ingrams and spraying wildly. I duck low and kill the two birds with a lead stone slicing through a railing chain, upsetting the plank and sending the goons dropping twenty feet straight down into hard wooden pier. I'd burned that bridge. Hopefully there'd be another leading me off this canoe when all was said and done.

I look towards my destination: the conning tower, and access from there to the bowels of the ship. I wasn't sure what I was going to do, burn the ship or sink it, but first I had to find the last link in this particular food chain. Three more goons appear from behind shipping containers, wanting to play survival of the fittest.

The one nearest me is running with his Mac-10 held straight out like he's in a jousting match. I run towards him, sidestep, and let his momentum slam his neck into my raised elbow. I hear the crush of his larynx as he's pitched backwards, the Ingram falling from his hand. I catch it, and spin.

And arc of hot lead spreads out like a ripple in a pool, catching the other two Mr. Smees in its wake. One catches three in the upper chest and goes down. The other catches one in the shoulder. He doesn't go down, just gets mad. He does a magic trick and suddenly a sawed-off shotgun appears in his hand. He does another trick and makes a crate beside me disintegrate in a shower of splinters. He shot from the hip and missed. I raise the Ingram and take my time. So long, sailor.

I do a quick search of the jouster and find an extra magazine for the Ingram and, of all things, a grenade. I'll never understand the attraction of keeping high explosives jammed into your front pocket. Must not be getting enough stimulation down there at home he has to threaten himself with an explosive orgasm at work. Some people.

I jog another 20 feet near my goal, and almost trip over a trapdoor in the deck that swings open. I look down and see three snarling goons stamping up a ladder towards the surface. The lead one looks up and grits his teeth, raising his gun and trying to steady it. I smile. I pull the pin. I drop them a present.

"Have fun hot-boxing it, boys!" I kick the trapdoor shut and bend to lock it in place, just as the screams start and the death egg cracks its shell. The steel door muffles the sound of the explosion, but I can still hear the bloody chunks flopping around as I step away. Hope someone has a hose on this dingy. They're going to need it.

I'm nearly there, at the base of the tower, looking up at the light boiling out from its windows. The dark deliverer was up there, he had to be. I ready myself, and ascend. I step through the doorway, and I see stars. Not the pretty diamonds on the black sky, but the stock of a shotgun sparkling my vision as it rams into my forehead. I fall to one knee.

The flashes and pops in my vision cover the black shoes I'm staring at, and I picture the dark king raising his boomstick level with my skull for one, final, knock-out punch. But the seconds tick by, and I'm wondering why I'm still alive. And then I know the answer all too clearly.

"Bah, tovarisch, I knew it would be you. They have pitted us against each other, da? I...am sorry."

The sting of betrayal hurts worse than the pressure of the barrel against my temple. I close my eyes, and wait for the big bang.

(Is this the end of our hero? Stay tuned for the next exciting installment! . . . .well, that kinda implies that it's _not_ the end of our hero, now don't it? Ah, hell, just gimme a week to hack out the next part *grumbles something about "anticlimatic"* -CM) 


	13. Part XIII

**The Why and the Wherefore**

The pounding in my skull was just a preview of the headache the buckshot was about to provide. But through it, I was able to utter a single question, at the same time an accusation:

"Why?!"

Nausea distorted time, and maybe it's a minute, or an hour, while my friend-turned-executor considers an answer. The pressure of the barrel lightens. I'm back in the present. There's a sigh.

"Max…" Vladimir begins, and I recognize the tone: the same I had used with Father Roy as he sat listening in the judgment side of the sin box. "It is…how you say…among thieves there is honor, da? My life was saved. My life is owed."

I raise my head slightly, and my vision explodes into a Hubble photograph of sparkling pain. Through gritted teeth I spit out another question; another few moments to pad the time between life and death.

"Mona."

"Da, yes. She put a bullet in that Punchinello animal. She saved me and, it seems, you, Max…"

The barrel disappeared altogether then as Vladimir's voice trailed off in a sort of stunned contemplation. I already knew the question that had rolled into his mind and I pushed it home with the completion of my monosyllabic trilogy: "Why?"

But the stunning conclusion was put on hold as the all too familiar cries of police sirens, screaming once more at my crimes against the dregs of humanity, whispered from the distance. There was a pause of decision, then a helping arm hooked under my own.

"Come my friend. Now we make our fast getaway."

Our paired stumble to his car was dream-like; misty. I lost track of time and myself and the splashes of light in my eyes turned from pain to streetlights.

The sirens were far behind now, and things seemed to be clearing. Vlad had lost his cool, and was glancing in all the mirrors, on the off chance that objects were closer than they appeared.

"I swear, Max, Vlad was not knowing you were alive. I was told there might be trouble when loading the ship, but…"

His voice trailed off into a sneer of regret and frustration, and mine bubbled up out of the fog of concussion.

"We're being played, Vlad. I'm just not sure by who, yet. What did Mona tell you?"

"She said only that my life was saved because she needed things shipped secretly. Business has been good the last few months. Vlad has many connections. For saving my life, it did not seem like a bad deal."

I nodded, not because I agreed but because I was rolling over this new info. How was Mona alive? Why would she be shipping Valkyr? How –

Revelation hit me harder than Vlad's shotgun had.

"How did Mona know where you were?"

Vlad gave me a look of puzzlement that might as well have come in a 500 piece box set. But all that changed when the missing piece fell into place. And then it was all anger. He turned his eyes back on the road, but his face grim.

"Da. Played. We were set up."

In the plush seat of the BMW, I turn to watch the city streak by, and I take myself back to school. I hated school.

Today's lesson, students: _Cause and Effect._

Cause: Vlad's life is saved by Mona. Effect: Vlad owes Mona, and Mona collects.

Now take a step back.

Cause: Vlad is kidnapped by the Punchinellos. Effect: Mona shows up to save Vlad.

But no, professor, that doesn't follow unless Mona knew Vlad had been kidnapped, and by whom, and where he had been taken.

Another step back.

Cause: Warehouse blown up is a Punchinello front. Police on the radio said Vlad did it. Effect: Vlad is kidnapped.

But Vlad didn't blow up the warehouse. I did. I did because there was a trap there, set up by...

Woden.

Some days, it hurts more to be smart enough to see how stupid you are. 


End file.
